Does my Flame Angel has a problem?

[Jay Hemdal]

Here’s the abstract of a scholarly study on salt water. Good news is it seemed to have cleared up in 50 days by removing carbon.

Effects of full-stream carbon filtration on the development of head and lateral line erosion syndrome (HLLES) in ocean surgeon - PubMed

Head and lateral line erosion syndrome (HLLES) is a common but very poorly understood disease of marine aquarium fish. One suspected etiology is the use of granulated activated carbon (GAC) to filter the water. Seventy-two ocean surgeons Acanthurus bahianus were distributed among three...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

That's Dr. Stamper's paper. It came out about a month before ours (so essentially at the same time, due to the review lag). Here is the abstract for our paper:

The Role of Activated Lignite Carbon in the Development of Head and Lateral Line Erosion in the Ocean Surgeon

Head and lateral line erosion (HLLE) is an acute or chronic, often progressive problem affecting captive fishes. Its etiology is enigmatic. This study examined the relationship between the use of ...

www.tandfonline.com

A third researcher was exploring diet (vitamin C mostly) in the development of HLLE. Funny thing - she had to throw out her study because one of her students put a carbon filter on their control tank (grin).

Jay

 

[TokenReefer]

This is kind of concerning. I run carbon in a tightly closed media bag in my sump with water passively moving through it. I clean it well before putting it in and replace it monthly. What's the verdict on carbon use then? Do not use it? Or make sure its clean, etc? Should it only be used for a certain amount of time?

These articles simply state "tanks were exposed to full-stream, extruded coconut shell activated carbon" and "Activated lignite carbon was added to one system, and pelleted carbon was added to the second system" respectively. How were they added/exposed? In common filtration methods we use, or in another way?

Wondering what my level of concern should be using gac going forward... so many things to consider in this hobby lol

 

[Jubal_Harshaw]

Unfortunately, just removing the carbon doesn't help. If this was carbon-caused, the dust (fines) in the tank will continue to be an issue. I had one concrete vat that we used carbon on. Fish would routinely get HLLE in it. We removed the carbon and changed all the water and fish would still get HLLE in it. We tore the tank and filter down, washed everything out and set it back up and never had an HLLE issue with that tank for the next decade.

That said, I don't see classic carbon-caused HLLE in this case.

Jay

Thank you, Jay. I was afraid you might say that.

I am planning to do a massive water change this weekend. I try nutrition and water quality first.

How would I go about tearing the aquarium apart? This would require cycling it again, right? This would be a lot of stress for the fish.

Another question about feeding. How much should I feed my fish? Right now, they get a cube every day.
Two Clowns, one Diamond Goby, one Citrus Goby, one Royal Gramma, one Yellow Coris Wrasse, one Cleaner Shrimp, and one Flame Angel.

 

[Jubal_Harshaw]

Thank you, everyone, for contributing. I will share the journey with you all.

 

[TokenReefer]

@Jubal_Harshaw I'm sorry you're dealing with this. Please do, perhaps we can all learn something here.

 

[Jubal_Harshaw]

This is kind of concerning. I run carbon in a tightly closed media bag in my sump with water passively moving through it. I clean it well before putting it in and replace it monthly. What's the verdict on carbon use then? Do not use it? Or make sure its clean, etc? Should it only be used for a certain amount of time?

These articles simply state "tanks were exposed to full-stream, extruded coconut shell activated carbon" and "Activated lignite carbon was added to one system, and pelleted carbon was added to the second system" respectively. How were they added/exposed? In common filtration methods we use, or in another way?

Wondering what my level of concern should be using gac going forward... so many things to consider in this hobby lol

Tell me about it.

I rinse the carbon, but sometimes, even after 10 minutes of rinsing, carbon dust still leaks. I never heard about it until I did more research and found out about it last night.

Reef2Reef and the community are excellent, but there is much more to know. I am thinking about building a database for all of this stuff. Not to compete with R2R but to supplement.

 

[Nemo&Friends]

1 cube for 7 fish does not seem much. Though your fish are smaller than mine, I feed 5 cube for 18 fish. I might be too generous as I do get algae, but in my opinion you could feed them more.

 

[theMeat]

Whether it’s hlle or not good nutrition won’t hurt. Agree with LRS, and this is a good idea too

 

[theMeat]

Would cut down on brine shrimp. Way fatty without much nutritional value

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Thank you, Jay. I was afraid you might say that.

I am planning to do a massive water change this weekend. I try nutrition and water quality first.

How would I go about tearing the aquarium apart? This would require cycling it again, right? This would be a lot of stress for the fish.

Another question about feeding. How much should I feed my fish? Right now, they get a cube every day.
Two Clowns, one Diamond Goby, one Citrus Goby, one Royal Gramma, one Yellow Coris Wrasse, one Cleaner Shrimp, and one Flame Angel.

I try to avoid feeding a set amount of food - I like to let the fish tell me how much food they need; feed multiple times a day, at least once to satiation where the fish says, “thanks I’m full for now”.
Jay

 

[brwaldbaum]

Unfortunately, just removing the carbon doesn't help. If this was carbon-caused, the dust (fines) in the tank will continue to be an issue. I had one concrete vat that we used carbon on. Fish would routinely get HLLE in it. We removed the carbon and changed all the water and fish would still get HLLE in it. We tore the tank and filter down, washed everything out and set it back up and never had an HLLE issue with that tank for the next decade.

That said, I don't see classic carbon-caused HLLE in this case.

Jay

Could you elaborate on how you washed it, i.e., did you rinse it, scrub it with a brush, use a solvent, etc.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Could you elaborate on how you washed it, i.e., did you rinse it, scrub it with a brush, use a solvent, etc.

We tossed out all the filter media and then rinsed every thing in tap water and scrubbed it with a brush. We then removed all of the rinse water. We then set the tank back up. I should mention we had the same issue with a plexiglass dealer system - we stopped seeing HLLE in it when we washed all the detritus out of the sump and all of the compartments.

I do need to point out that we stopped seeing HLLE in any of our fish when we stopped using carbon altogether. The only carbon we use is in the RODI prefilters and a limited amount of well-rinsed pelleted carbon used only in reef systems (where the POC is being exported by the skimmers and taken up by the critters).

Jay

 

[brandon429]

Here’s fifty pages of reef tanks doing that cleaning, but for different reasons. We specialize in skip cycle disassembly cleaning if anyone wants to do a rip clean to rid carbon particles I’m down for another remote work job let’s do. It’ll be the first time we ever did a rip clean for that reason. I can’t fathom any method that would work better



no fish harm for eight years/ excluding jumpers lol in the holding tote (use lids with holes drilled)

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

we never used bottle bac because that’s true skip cycle tank surgery, no backup required. I love remote reef tank surgery let’s do. It only helps reefs. It’s not a harm, it buys more running time even for reefs not in challenge / it’s fully positive to be free of organic particulate waste, results and follow up months on the entrants show. We remove that which is destined to become skimmate one day, all at once, removing some carbon dust will be a nice side benefit


I had no idea carbon dust was that harmful. I will not pack my next fish setup with a fluval filter full of it, that’s for sure.

 

[brwaldbaum]

We tossed out all the filter media and then rinsed every thing in tap water and scrubbed it with a brush. We then removed all of the rinse water. We then set the tank back up. I should mention we had the same issue with a plexiglass dealer system - we stopped seeing HLLE in it when we washed all the detritus out of the sump and all of the compartments.

I do need to point out that we stopped seeing HLLE in any of our fish when we stopped using carbon altogether. The only carbon we use is in the RODI prefilters and a limited amount of well-rinsed pelleted carbon used only in reef systems (where the POC is being exported by the skimmers and taken up by the critters).

Jay

Do you also continue to avoid HLLE prone species? (I believe you had stated that in a previous thread.)

 

[theMeat]

We tossed out all the filter media and then rinsed every thing in tap water and scrubbed it with a brush. We then removed all of the rinse water. We then set the tank back up. I should mention we had the same issue with a plexiglass dealer system - we stopped seeing HLLE in it when we washed all the detritus out of the sump and all of the compartments.

I do need to point out that we stopped seeing HLLE in any of our fish when we stopped using carbon altogether. The only carbon we use is in the RODI prefilters and a limited amount of well-rinsed pelleted carbon used only in reef systems (where the POC is being exported by the skimmers and taken up by the critters).

Jay

Makes me think it might be viral or bacterial

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Makes me think it might be viral or bacterial

No, we pretty much determined it was carbon dust. Moving the fish out of the affected systems caused the issue to resolve - if it was an infectious agent, moving the fish would have just carried the issue along with the fish.
Jay